Re-issued in 2022 to celebrate the Association for Public Art’s 150th Anniversary, these items feature Barbara Kruger’s artwork Untitled (When I hear the word culture I take out my checkbook). This 1985 artwork by Kruger was first featured on a t-shirt given to attendees as part of our organization’s Public Art in America ’87 conference held in Philadelphia. The conference was the first national, interdisciplinary forum to examine public art in its broadest context through the perspectives of politics, urban design, cultural anthropology, and the social sciences. 

Barbara Kruger, one of the most significant and groundbreaking artists of our time, utilizes text and image to explore the media saturated environment that has continued to envelop us. Her early work of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, based on traditional forms of tv and print advertising, still resonates today and transcends the boundaries of internet and social media consumption.